


Laurel Sprigs and Tulips

by Kendas



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-08
Updated: 2010-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendas/pseuds/Kendas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's been going every year since the war ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laurel Sprigs and Tulips

**Author's Note:**

> **A.N:** Slight AU of the events of Deathly Hallows and complete AU for the final chapter.   
> **Disclaimer:** None of the characters or locations used in this story are mine. They belong solely to the imagination of J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers and Bloomsbury.

****

Laurel Sprigs and Tulips

She started going the very first Christmas after he died. She doesn't use the term murdered when she looks back on the events of that too sunny day in May. However, during his darker days, Harry still does.

She tells him not to. That he had no choice. Reminds him of the lives he saved; changed for the better. And, to herself, secretly questions if Voldemort had enough humanity left in him to be called alive anyway. She remembers, in those moments, the dreams she had during those few months sleeping out in the tent with Harry and Ron. The pretty fresh faced boy with dark hair that would come to her in her dreams and leave her waking up sweaty and guilty and wondering about morality.

 _No,_ she thinks. Not human by a long shot. Not in the end at least.

Harry doesn't look up at her during these conversations. He just watches his charge, Teddy, as he crawls around on the floor. "There's always a choice," he replies, eyes fixed sadly on the toddler's movements.

***

Harry's never come with her.

She tried to encourage him to at the start. She'd thought at the time it might help him, and after her first visit she'd been even surer that it would have. But he's always resolutely said no. After a while she'd just stopped asking.

***

The first two years that she goes they never speak.

It's not that unusual. Graveyards aren't exactly social meet and greet places, and it's not as if they ever had the chance to be acquaintances, much less friends, during their time at Hogwarts.

Hermione doesn't even really notice him that first year. There are just so many people around - the losses are still so raw and families seem out on mass to grieve their dead; the heroes and the others. It's easy to overlook his less familiar head of brown hair for more prominent ones.

She visits each new grave in turn, regardless of how well she knew them or what side they fought on in the war. She even stops and stands for a moment beside Bellatrix's. She steers clear of those where mourners are gathered around and pays her respects from afar. At some she lays a single white lily, and upon two she places a small picture of a chubby faced baby.

She leaves the one she's really come to visit until last.

It's always surrounded by heads of red hair early on in the day, and Hermione can't quite bring herself to face them all at this time of year. They've never been anything, but nice to her since. Never held it against her or said ' _I wish_ '.' But Hermione still sees the end of that sentence in their eyes when they look at her and reminds herself that if it wasn't for her they'd have only lost one son not two.

***

It's the third time she visits that she first really notices him.

As a race, humans have short memories. It's something Hermione's learnt during her study of history crosses the barriers between both Wizarding and Muggle cultures. It's never more apparent to her than in the dwindling number of visitors to the dead as the years pass. Lives move on, she supposes. Families start to grow once more and, though the dead are not necessarily forgotten, the need to pay them tribute is outweighed by the demands of the living.

The knowledge doesn't make her any less sad. Sometimes she wonders if she only continues to go out of guilt. As soon as the thought enters her head though, she feels instantly guilty for the possibility of truth in it.

Hermione doesn't have the distraction or excuses of others. Not anymore. All chances of them have been lost through mistakes of her own making. As she sits cross legged on Ron's grave in the muted afternoon sun, she can't help but think that if she'd just been a better witch, a better daughter, a better friend, that maybe she too would have something else to draw her attention on this day. She wonder's too about the fact that someone with all that gave their life for someone who's parents don't even recognise them anymore. For someone who can't even pull her best friend out of the pit he's sunken into.

For one brief self-deprecating moment she thinks _what a waste_.

She looks up at the sound of someone near by dropping down onto the still half frozen ground, and shakes herself out of the morose train of thought. It's not really like her after all.

Nott. Theodore, she thinks, allocating a name to the face she looks up at.

She watches as he places a sprig of Laurel, bound into something resembling a bouquet with Meadowsweet and a solitary pink carnation, upon the grave next to Ron's.

Hazel eyes catch her's accusingly and she looks away, chastised. Her fingers snatch on a blade of grass at her side; breaking it and squashing it until the green stains her skin.

***

They don't talk until the fourth year. Hermione's not even sure that what passes between them at that point can even be called a conversation. Really, it's just a brief acknowledgement of 'hello'. There's even less people this year and it's harder to avoid or ignore those that still take the time to visit.

The Weasley's still visit though. Ginny catches Hermione before they leave. A small freckled hand lightly touching Hermione's elbow when she stands up after placing a copy of the most recent photo of Teddy on his parents' grave.

"Why don't you come over?" Ginny asks, eyes soft and face still as pretty as Hermione remembers even with the white scar that mars her right cheek.

Hermione's eyes linger on the jagged line of it, her fingers twitching inside her robe's pockets with the temptation to reach out and just touch. In the end she just smiles and looks back down at the two graves, shaking her head. "It'd be awkward."

"Don't be stupid. Mum was only saying last week that she misses seeing you."

Hermione looks over to where the group she'd once thought of as a second family are stood. George is stood stoically at the back of the party, watching with an expression that seems so alien on his features Hermione feels a shiver run down her spine. Bill's arm wraps around Fleur's shoulders as she lowers a bundle to the ground briefly, talking to it as they both tilt it towards the grave.

Hermione's eyes flicker and shut for a moment before she shakes her head again and repeats, "No, it would."

Ginny doesn't pursue it any further after that. Instead, she just stands beside her for a few minutes, silently linking her arm with Hermione's and resting her head against her shoulder. Hermione lets herself lean into the touch.

"Is Harry… is he still staying at Andromeda's?" she asks after a while.

Hermione doesn't need to be able to see Ginny to know that it isn't the question she's really asking. She nods, though, and thinks to herself, ' _Still messed up, too_.'

The Weasley's don't stay as long as normal this time. The same demands that have left the other graves unvisited calling them away too. Ginny slips away - no goodbyes, just a kiss against Hermione's cheek and a squeeze of her forearm.

When Hermione finally sits down at Ron's graveside Theo's already there. It's him that looks this time and her that finds the intensity of the intrusion too much. She pointedly inclines her head at him and say's ' _hello_ ' in a suitably hushed voice before looking back at Ron's name.

No invitations.

He doesn't look away like she did the year before, however. Hermione feels his eyes on her as she digs into the ground and buries a chess piece she found at the bottom of her old school trunk. But he doesn't return the greeting either.

When he finally does say hello, it's her name whispered low and deep as he stands to leave an hour later. "Till next year," he says, and Hermione watches his back as he walks away.

***

They talk for longer the fifth year - not much, but longer. And, for the first time, Hermione really looks at the grave he so studiously continues to visit. Sebastian Nott, she reads and the Death Eater's face flares in her mind and she remembers watching him fall.

She'd never linked their names before. She thinks maybe she should have, but it's not an uncommon name.

"I'm sorry," she says. And she is. She saw so many Death Eater's fall that day and it's easy to forget that those they left behind hurt just as much as the rest of them. She remembers every time Draco comes into work at the Ministry, and she sees his face as it meets hers, hollow and haunted after his most recent visit to his father.

The look in Theo's face as he lays down the flowers – always the same mix - on, what she can only presume to be, his father's grave isn't the same as Draco's. It's harder and there's a numbness in the lines that make her think of Harry.

He shrugs and looks up at her.

For a moment she remembers her time at school - the derisive, disapproving comments that the Slytherins so often shot at her – and she expects a sarcastic reply. Anticipates it as she sets her shoulders firm; ready not to respond. She actually thinks she deserves some scorn for her comment. ' _Sorry? Honestly, Hermione_ ,' she thinks.

But instead, Theo just looks down to the inscription Bill had written out for Ron – the words he'd said at his funeral: _Son, brother, friend, hero, chess player extraordinaire_ , and says, "Me too."

Hermione smiles and it's the first time she remembers doing so during one of these visits. She's never cried. And it's not like she sits there moping about what's lost the whole time. She's far too practical to dwell on what she can't change. But it's never felt right to feel happy whilst visiting Ron.

She wipes the expression from her face and somehow they end up talking about the weather and the new French government.

***

It's been six years and it still hurts. It's a dull but constant ache in her chest and it swells when she looks at Harry as he gets ready to take Luna out on their first date even as something in her gives and relaxes; screams out 'Thank God.'

Six years of him shutting himself away with the guilt and the complexes that his so called destiny left him and now he finally seems to be putting himself back together. She still feels bad that nothing she did ever seemed to do anything to help him. That it was Luna who managed to pull him out of his funk rather than his best friend. But he looks happy for the first time in too long, and even Hermione's self doubt and inadequacies can't stop her from feeling warm inside when she sees him smile.

Hermione looks down at Ron's grave - snow dusting the top and the poinsettia Mrs Weasley had brought early lending a seasonal touch that always seems too oblique to be real - and wishes she could say the same.

Theo doesn't come this year. Or, if he does, Hermione misses him. Her time at Ron's grave is cut short by the promise she made to be home in time to baby sit Teddy so Harry can go pick Luna up and take her out. She apologies to the marble headstone. Lays down the now traditional wreath and tells him about how relieved she is for Harry.

Standing's always been hard. The damage her right knee took during the so-called ' _final battle_ ' has never quite healed. Her Healer at St. Mungo's says there are signs of arthritis starting. But this year, in that moment, standing up is harder than normal and Hermione stumbles and has to catch herself against the headstone.

"I miss you," she murmurs.

***

The seventh year, Hermione arrives at Ron's grave to find an unexpected addition. Beside the Weasley's usual offerings lies a single yellow tulip.

She bends and picks it up without thinking, rolling the stem between her thumb and forefinger as she lifts it to her nose. It seems sadder than any of the other flowers there and Hermione can't quite work out why that should be. Yellow has always represented life to her; happiness and the spring. Molly Weasley's poinsettia's and the other seasonal bouquets always remind her of what Ron's missing out on; the world he's no longer a part of. _Because of her_. There's no life in them anymore, just sadness and missed opportunities. Maybe next year she won't bring Holly, she thinks.

She shakes her head and bends to put it back down when a hand catches her wrist and stops her.

"I didn't see you last year. I thought you'd -" Hermione starts to say, the end of the sentence not quite making it past her throat.

Theo gives a small smile and a shake of his head. "I was late. But I still came." He lifts the tulip from her hand and she watches with bemusement as he breaks the stem.

She wants to say he shouldn't. That it's Ron's. That it was meant for him. But instead she wrinkles her forehead and finds a different question slide past her lips. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to forget," Theo replies simply, slipping the remaining stem of the flower through Hermione's hair so that it tucks neatly behind her ear.

"Were you close?" she asks, her eyes tracking the line of a small scar through his eyebrow as her fingers reach up to touch the petals now seated in her hair.

His lips curl, but it's too bitter to be called a smile.

"Why then?" she asks again and even to herself it sounds petulant.

He sighs and brushes the backs of his fingers against her cheek for a fraction of a second before stepping back. "Because to learn from our history we first have to remember it."

She wonders about that answer for a moment before suddenly anticipating Theo returning her question and feeling dread rise bile in her throat. If he does Hermione has no idea what her answer would be. The only one that springs to mind is, ' _Can't stop,'_ and she's not sure that qualifies.

He doesn't ask though. Instead, they end up taking about work.

Apparently, Theo's been teaching Arithmancy at a wizarding school somewhere outside of Vancouver, Canada. It strikes Hermione, as she listens to him talk about his plans to move back, that she's never before wondered why she only ever runs into him here. Their community's so small - so tight-nit now after all it's been through - that she's always running into familiar faces. But until now, she's never once thought it odd how little she sees or hears of Theo throughout the rest of the year.

***

Harry comes the eighth year and, as a result, she hardly gets chance to speak to Theo. They nod and exchange polite hello's, but nothing more. It's like Harry's presence forbids it. Hermione feels shame flare on her cheeks as Harry watches their brief transaction with curious eyes.

The first four years, and even the fifth and the sixth, she'd missed Harry desperately. Wanted him there with her on these visits. Needed him. She'd never said it - she hadn't wanted to push that kind of guilt on Harry on top of what he already upon himself - but visiting Ron's grave on her own had been the hardest thing ever.

As she stands next to her friend however, Teddy stood between them as Harry talks about Ron – actually talks about him willingly for the first time since he's died – Hermione can't stop herself from thinking about the previous year and missing her conversations with Theo.

***

 

It's the ninth year that she asks.

She does it as they're leaving and feels instantly guilty to be asking at all. In this place. Of all the possible places she could have asked.

Theo had been telling her about a job that's come up at the Ministry he's interested in. It's not teaching, but it's tied into it and would mean an opportunity to move back. 'Home,' he says, an odd quality to his voice.

It strikes her that this is her only chance - the only place - and that another year is too long.

Harry had looked at her only a week early, his eyes fixed on hers as they sat across from each other in Andromeda's lounge, and said, "You need to move on, Hermione. He wouldn't have wanted this."

Hermione's eyes had fallen to her lap and she'd toyed with the thread of the hat she was knitting for Teddy.

"I'm serious. Do you think he'd stand to see you like this if he was here now?"

Hermione hadn't been able to form a reply. Part of her was too shocked that Harry was the one now trying to give her advice like she was the one that had moped and torn herself apart for four years over doing the right thing.

Harry's words ring in her ears as she looks up at Theo and sets her jaw in a determined line. The kind she used to use when lecturing Ron and Harry about study schedules.

"Would you like to maybe get a drink with me at the Three Broomsticks?" she asks.

 _~Nox~_

**Author's Note:**

>  **A.N:** In case anyone's interested, the sprig that Theo places on his father's grave was picked because Laurel means 'Ambition and/or glory', Meadowsweet means 'Uselessness', and a pink Carnation means 'I'll never forget you.' In addition, the yellow tulip was picked because it's supposed to represent 'hopeless love.'


End file.
